In my country we can say the name of a machine control.

Join entities: For example, I do a "Create turn profile" in lathe, and get a lot of segmented lines. I select all the entities and click on "Join entities". Done.

Do a search for NCI & Parameter Reference.pdf on your computer, or contact your re-seller for the NCI documentation portfolio.

Sorry, I should have said "relatively speaking". So just over 59000 members on the forum out of over 211,000 installed seats. Some seats have multiple users, some people have passed on or retired. Roughly 28% at best of official users are members on this forum. We are in the minority. How many of these members are only weekly or monthly visitors? My point being, that there is a wealth of knowledge out there that has not made it's way into the forum. We are not the only smart people out there.

It saves for me. I can remember back in the days of v7 and v9 that files could get corrupted by doing stuff like this, especially if they were large files. It has been a very long time since I last saw a file get corrupted. I don't know if it matters, but, I save both files before closing either of them. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of us on the forum. I'll bet there is a whole lot more tricks out there that we don't know about.

I almost forgot. Open 2 sessions of Mastercam (even though it says it is not supported). Go to one screen select what ever entities you want, Ctrl-C, click on other screen in open space, Ctrl-V. Very handy when you don't want to go through the trouble of importing/exporting geometry.

I'm using MPLMASTER from IHS for X6, using X6.

Change at point. Right click on a chain in the Chain Manager, then change at point. You can change speed, feed, insert a dwell, change coolant etc., and you can also do Manual entry as comment or as code. Have any of you guys ever successfully used the Manual entry feature in Change at point? I have never been able to use that feature. Colin, do you know?

This is one I use. When analyzing a feature, you can type in new values for that feature. If you click analyze entities or "F4" and then click on an arc, you can type in a new radius or diameter and hit enter. Lines, click on line and change endpoints. Etc... So rather than doing a transform, projection or offset operation, you can alter the geometry at the point of the analysis, once you hit enter, the entity will change.

Thanks jlw. Barracuda blocked. Guess I will have to do it the old school way.

jlw, On a side note, how are you able to paste in images in your posts? I have not been able to for quite some time.

Unless you have an issue with memory capacity, or using the sub in many different programs, you may want to avoid this. I find it better to have everything in one program, that way you are not populating the directory with a maze of program numbers to keep track of. However, I do use sub programs from time to time. And, on big files, dataserver.

Start looking in the post processor development forum, you can start to pick up a little there.

You won't regret it.

The generic post from IHS is miles ahead of the post that comes with a standard install. It is well worth the time to rebuild your post using IHS mpmaster / mplmaster. Define this: sOpSeqNo : "" #Operation manager displayed operation number Add to pparameter$: if prmcode$ = 15240, sOpSeqNo = sparameter$ Add this error message: scompwarn = "OPERATION " + sOpSeqNo + ": WARNING - CUTTER COMP APPLIED ON ARC MOVE" Add a post block: pcompwarn #Cutter Compensation Check if prv_cc_pos$ <> cc_pos$ & cc_pos$ & gcode$ > 1, [ if compwarnflg = 0, result = mprint(scompwarn) spaces$ = 0 pspc, *sm00, " ", scomm_str, scompwarn, scomm_end, e$ spaces$ = sav_spc compwarnflg = 1 ] Add to pcirout: if not(arccomp), pcompwarn

It can be done. I got this tip from EX-wccprogrammer: http://www.emastercam.com/board/topic/78945-mastercam-posts/ Now I have one post that does 15 different lathes, M control, T control, 2 axis up to 9 axis twin spindle. Each one has it's own MD and CD, I just pick machine and post.

It helps to remove unnecessary movement. If you must, you could throw in a force tool change in your operation or better yet put in a bogus point toolpath (say right at your retract point) to force C to rotate to 0 before your A0C0 move. This might be a bit of a PITA, but it will maintain the integrity between Mastercam and your posted code.

If your post is based on the generic 5 axis post, the C axis does not necessarily need to return to C0, the XY will be rotated around it. You could force a reset of the C to 0, but I would worry about potential side effects of doing so, especially for 5 axis motion.

Thanks Colin! Again, you're always one step ahead of us.

On the Matsuura, I remember using 2. The first one was just to hit the switch quickly to get the rough tool length, and the second slow one was for the fine measurement.

Trey88: see my post from July 10, specifically the part about a vertical rotating about the Y and Z axes. Do your programming like you would a 3 axis vertical using top plane for the WCS and the tool plane construction plane for all rotations. http://www.emastercam.com/board/topic/81907-5-axis-post-help/?hl=matrix#entry995804 Sounds like that trunnion is a Tsudakoma based on the -65 and +110 B moves... Do you also have the tailstock for the B90 position?

Always use the same federate on those. The best way is to temporarily lock out the feedrate override when coming down on the sensor to get more consistent results. Oh, and a slow feedrate is a good feedrate. There is a delay of the switch triggering and the control processing in which speed effects. The slower you're moving when triggering the smaller the deviation you will have. I believe the delay is set in the keep relays... but you probably don't want to touch that.

Your code: ptoolcomment #Comment for tool tnote = t$ toffnote = tloffno$ tlngnote = tlngno$ tldianote = tldia$ spaces$ = 0 scomm_str, *tldia$, pstrtool, ", ", *stlmat, ptcr, ptdia, pcut_tl, scomm_end, e$ scomm_str, [if n_flutes1 > 1, *n_flutes1, "FLTS"], [if n_flutes1 = 1, *n_flutes1, "FLT"], *flute_len, [if tool_typ$ = 4 | tool_typ$ = 5, *TipTreatment], [if shldr_len > flute_len, *shldr_len], *oa_len, scomm_end, e$ New: ptoolcomment #Comment for tool tnote = t$ toffnote = tloffno$ tlngnote = tlngno$ tldianote = tldia$ spaces$ = 0 scomm_str, *tldia$, pstrtool, ", ", *stlmat, ptcr, ptdia, pcut_tl, scomm_end, e$ scomm_str, [if n_flutes1 > 1, *n_flutes1, "FLTS"], [if n_flutes1 = 1, *n_flutes1, "FLT"], *flute_len, [if tool_typ$ = 4 | tool_typ$ = 5, pTipTreatment], [if shldr_len > flute_len, *shldr_len], *oa_len, scomm_end, e$ Create a new postblock: pTipTreatment if TipTreatment = 0, "PLUG " if TipTreatment = 1, "BOTTOMING " Or your could use an argument with string variables, but this is cheap and easy.

Interesting. The Doosans we have use G112, but the Amada's use G12.1 So I guess it's up to the machine builder?